Amos was put into the context, as a case study, for us to understand the whole sales concept better. In brief, he works in a retail banking industry, selling financial services which is often associated with a fast moving market. He wanted to be able to reach his quota and please his boss. However, he was facing difficulties in reaching his goals. He had his own way of doing things throughout the sales process. He had failed to completely realize that there are certain standards in the whole business sales process which his own company wanted him to adopt, in order to be successful in this line. We will now look into the first sales process called Leads Generation.

To start the sales process, we must find suitable candidates or leads to follow up on. Methods to find such people include referrals, canvassing, special promotions and many others. Generating enough quality leads will eventually determine how successful you are in sales. To improve on Amos’s sales performance in this first process, it is fundamental for us to bridge the gap between Amos’s current profile and the expectations of the company. To do so, we need to look into four components namely the knowledge, attitude, skill and accountability.

As we have read before, Amos was mostly dependent on others to bring him the leads. However, this would have to change if he wanted to reach his quota. In terms of knowledge, he would need to know how the company automatically generate their leads. He must know where to find the leads and act upon them. In this case, the bank does a lot of ground canvassing and possibly telemarketing to generate more leads. Amos should also consider changing his attitude to be more independent and not relying on others, or even his company, when generating leads. Now that he knows where and how to find those leads, he could start taking initiative. He can do canvassing and telemarketing by himself instead of waiting for his company to start the lead generation process. Of course, he has to stop being shy and embrace the fact that he need to do this in order to reach his quota. Ultimately, it is a numbers game whereby the more leads you have, the higher the chances of conversion.

Based on Amos’s shyful nature, he was not able to talk to new people often. There was always a certain reluctancy in doing so. That was the reason why he depended mostly on others for the leads. In doing so, he gets to avoid talking to new leads and only talk to those he knows from the referrals. However, once he has accepted the fact that he had to do this, he should be able to brush up on his communication skills such as his elevator pitch. Thus, he would be able to better articulate his value proposition in the the shortest possible time. He also needs to start reducing his curiosities about his leads, build up tested scripts and give consistent delivery. This would enable him to hunt his leads anywhere and anytime. The nature of Amos’s job also requires him to be performance based, driven by strategies. Therefore, in order for him to be more accountable, he would need to engage his supervisors to motivate him in terms of goal setting and remuneration. He could even adopt a buddy system to keep him in check, making sure he reaches his quota.

After looking through these four components, we have managed to bridge the gap between the actual performance and the desired outcome. With this, Amos would be better prepared to reach his quota. However, this would only be the first step in his journey to become a successful salesperson and achieving his dreams. In next week’s issue, we will be looking at Qualifying Leads: The Second Sales Process.

*The key principle is that anyone can sell, depending on where the strength lies at and how to leverage them with the surrounding opportunities unique to the sales person to achieve the desired sales outcomes! Find out more on how you can leverage your sales via https://pearcomms.com/